WTF is going on?
It was only 6 or 7 years ago that everyone was talking about Atheism, and reading atheist books. Now everyone, and I mean EVERYONE is into religion/spirituality and identifies as sort of theist or agnostic or pantheist, and actual atheism is seen as a form of autism and idiocy.
Please tell me what books to read. What did I miss?
/pol/ got memed into accepting Christianity as the West's last best hope and Veeky Forums gets a ton of /pol/ spillover
Maybe stop trying to follow internet fads, for which 6 or 7 years is actually a very long stretch, and instead focus on learning.
As for your request for books, why don't you try some Robert Anton Wilson? He will show you the third way you did NOT mention: complete and utter ontological and psychological agnosticism.
it's funny how much /pol/ hates the middle-east while simultaneously worshipping a middle-eastern religion.
>He will show you the third way you did NOT mention: complete and utter ontological and psychological agnosticism.
but I said agnosticism already, although it's a self-defeating position. Either it doesn't organize its thoughts and simply remains in ignorance like a lazy thinker shrugging his shoulders at big questions.
Or it picks the self-contradictory "You can't no nuffin, everything is uncertain" mentality, which eats itself.
I think it's because islam is gaining popularity in europe and due to refuge controversy, to counter that people start meme'ing 'our' religion which is christianity even if people themselves are non believers. To counter islam with atheism doesn't work because atheists are not united enough, does not have enough influence on culture, so it leaves only christianity.
That's your pappas agnosticism, boy. Did you not read complete and utter? Listen, the eating itself is inevitable, and does not have to result in nothing. No, it can result in a sharp mind, taking in the world and using ALL tools available, not some namby pamby shrugging or dissolusionement. But it takes guts, brain, and heart. RAW is an excellent example.
These things go in trends, it will be back to Atheism once Christ posting becomes too annoying and people feel the need to be contrarian against the dominant view again. You should know that if you've been on Veeky Forums long enough.
I'm unconvinced this is actually a thing; show me some data that this is actually happening and we can talk
6-7 years ago: Sam Harris, rationalist undertones
2017: Peterson, traditionalist undertones (which are not really inherent to JP, rather they are a way to co-opt his anti-leftist drivel as far-right introductory propaganda, which, to be fair, is something he detests)
The majority of Veeky Forums operates under the narratives laid down by pseudo-intellectuals who get huge on Youtube: this is criteria needed to identify any local Veeky Forums ideology.
If in 4 years from now another edgy Youtube talking-head will start pandering to uneducated internet audiences while using Deleuzian jargon, you can be sure that that will be the way in which Veeky Forums will morph itself once again.
On the internet and ESPECIALLY on Veeky Forums once something gets popular enough people start hating it and go in the exact opposite direction just because it's popular.
On this basis I'm convinced within the next couple of years /pol/ is going to be communist, or at least NazBol.
even marxists don't like communism anymore and they're just critiquing capital, without offering any coherent alternative, like Zizek, and they readily admit the have no idea what an alternative would look like. The ones that do propose alternatives are usually transhumanist quacks who just want to fuck sexbots and not have to work.
Frequency dependent selection
Intrasting
/pol/ has always been a nazbol board. gtfo sionista
>Now everyone, and I mean EVERYONE is into religion/spirituality and identifies as sort of theist or agnostic or pantheist
I don't think much of your accounting, dear user. And I think even less of you.
Stupid point
>/pol/ dislikes the Muslim Middle East now so it must mean they also hated it at all other time periods, including when it was populated by whites or Christians
I am by no means immune to the trends of Veeky Forums, and I am still an agnostic, but my recent personal interest in religion has come mostly from reading more conservative writers.
The central argument for religion seems to be that if there is no God, then there is no morality at all. This is something I cannot personally live with.
Since (as Nietzsche pointed out) there can be no cold, unbiased system of morality devised by man - no sythetic a priori judgements, no categorical imperative - there must either be a divinely ordered system of morality or none at all. Man will always modify his own system of morality to suit his purposes and justify it with his unscientific dialectic.
So the choice comes down to whether you wish to live in a moral universe, or whether you wish to construct your own morality. The second proposition seems, to me, untenable, and almost everyone who has tried to become the superman has found madness and misery.
I feel a strong moral obligation to do things, and so I can either accept that these feelings are arbitrary, or I can believe that it relates to some universally true set of principles which are innate and objective. Religion provides these answers
>Red outfit
>White beard
>Black belt
>Doesn't give presents to Jewish kids
>yfw Santa is NazBol
>And a karate master
>including when it was populated by whites
Is it possible you think pic is documentary evidence?
>2000 years ago the Middle-East was populated by whites
not this meme again
There is a very tentative shift towards eastern religion and Buddhism happening that may displace christposting
>There is a very tentative shift towards eastern religion and Buddhism happening
Hold onto your heads boys, you know what that lot are like.
You must realize that """progress""" is a myth. Society does not move toward a "better" or "worse" future like a fired arrow. Its more like an amoeba, stretching and retracting pseudopods, wandering around with no ruling intelligence.
That's a japanese officer though I don't see the link with buddhism
Buddhism is to the Japanese as Christianity is to Catholics.
>If ordered to] march: tramp, tramp, or shoot: bang, bang. This is the manifestation of the highest Wisdom [of Enlightenment]. The unity of Zen and war of which I speak extends to the farthest reaches of the holy war [now under way]
Harada Daiun Sogaku
your a fuckinn pseudopod
Global recession.
Cant hide problems under the carpet forever...
Christianity is the original Jewish conspiracy to destroy the West and it succeeded.
I read The Master and Margarita 2 years ago and Brothers Karamazov few months ago and stopped being atheist.
If it makes you feel any better I've been able to resist all of the Christ-posters with ease, and I know there are others on Veeky Forums who still haven't taken the leap of faith.
>Shinto is the largest religion in Japan, practiced by nearly 80% of the population, yet only a small percentage of these identify themselves as "Shintoists" in surveys.[4][9]
>According to Inoue (2003): "In modern scholarship, the term is often used with reference to kami worship and related theologies, rituals and practices. In these contexts, 'Shinto' takes on the meaning of 'Japan's traditional religion', as opposed to foreign religions such as Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and so forth."[12]
If you're trying to be purely logical, agnostic makes more sense than atheist.
We can't know how the universe began, so why have a belief about its origin?
The point I'm making is that even though the Japanese are largely Shinto their general take to religion is significantly influenced by Buddhism and generally what you'll find is some sort of syncretic mix.
The joke was that I was implying Catholicism is a kind of syncretic paganism that is only significantly influenced by Christianity.
When considering it that way agnosticism makes the, somewhat unfair, assumption that both ideas are equally worthy of consideration even if there is no conclusive case for either. When really agnostic atheism is the more logical option, god does not appear to exist, so that's probably the case even if we can't be fully certain.
Atheism is just narcissism disguised.
It's not saying both ideas are equally worthy. Its saying that you can't possibly known so to even put a hypothesis on it doesn't make sense. It's saying "we don't know about the origin of the universe, and we'll leave it at that".
If I believe we live in a simulated reality, that had a (not necessarily omnipotent) creator(s), would that technically make me a theist? Or something else entirely?
You can't possibly know, but you can make a reasonable judgement of the available information.
I mean I don't know that there isn't invisible fairies living under my bed, but I'm going to make the reasonable judgement that there probably isn't.
If I believe the universe was made by time-travellers from the universe we already live in am I a theist?
...
So you just blindly accept anything that justifies your preconceived notions?
It's not about what books you read, it's about how you read books.
There are good arguments for the existence of God
There are no good arguments for the God of various religions
But can we really make a reasonable judgement about the origin of the universe? It seems vastly beyond our capabiltiies, we can't possibly know the reason (if any) or how it first became formed.
No, but we can make a reasonable judgement about what does or does not appear to exist. And as of yet god does not appear to exist.
Maybe the universe was made spontaneously out of something, maybe it was invented by interdimensional aliens, maybe it was made by god. We do not know. But we can make the reasonable judgement that god and interdimensional universe-crafting aliens don't appear to exist. It's entirely possible that we may some day find that they do, but that's not the case yet. That's what atheism/theism/agnosticism is all about, whether or not god exists. Not what precisely made the universe.
>I don't believe in God
>lul Im soooo gud
Explain
So many loaded presumptions in one post.
>or whether you wish to construct your own morality
Which is something that is definitely not done by Christians, hence no denominational schisms and a universal moral code such that they all think the same acts are right and wrong
Atheists ruined atheism. Too many fedoralords who are also SJWs and cucked white knights.
Also the big spokespeople of Atheism are all getting old and are dying off.
Then there is Islam rushing into the gabs created by disempowering Christianity. Most people with half a brain can recognize that Christianity was the lesser evil. And then the same SJW atheist types are even defending this garbage religion because they got coaxed into thinking it is being oppressed.
you have to remember that Veeky Forums is constantly made up of high schoolers who probably feel guilty about spending all of their time on /v/, and cling to people like jordan peterson, as they never themselves had a father figure that would inspire them to do anything but sit around and play video games, or masturbate. these people cling to religion as an ideal.
this post is pretty prime evidence.
Back to /pol/ with you.
We realized Jesus is the savior of humanity.
>implying I am religious
A honest assessment of reality is not an endorsement for any action or ideology. Atheism being a derailed trainwreck of a movement is irrelevant for the existence of a god or God in particular.
All you seem to be able to do is attribute bad motives and poor character qualities to dismiss things people say that you don't like. Which is an actual sign of immaturity. If not of body then at least of mind.
...
No, like I said, I'm still agnostic and merely exploring religious writers out of curiosity. Also, I think "preconceived notions" is an inaccurate term for what I'm describing here.
That's true, but these schisms are (according to people like C.S. Lewis) a positive intellectual excercise whereby we attempt to figure out the specifics of what he lumps together as "the Tao" - that is, the set of universal principles which can be found (more or less) in all of the ancient religions. These are disagreements surrounding central objective principles, whereas the subjectivist/ nietzschean posits that objective principles cannot exist.
I definitely wouldn't say they're positive, they
If you have subjective interpretations, then the existence of central objective principles is worthless. The fact these principles come from the Bible and hence there are also translation issues, means the central objective principles aren't even objective.
>1920s religious perennialism
Read more you outmoded fool.
>more
I think you mean "Read what I would prefer you to read"
Being contrarianly religious is actually the true fedora now
This is true.
So little argument.
i love kaiki
WE
the cultural collapse of christianity gave way to pure capitalist deterritorialisation, vapid scientism and identity politics. ie. things so bad that make getting cucked by ye old Jesus look good in comparison.
My family inhabited the city of Ramallah for thousands of years, six miles outside Jerusalem, we were the first Christians in the world. As an arab I wear my Christianity like a badge of our particular culture and way of life, I went to Catholic school for 10 years, studied the bible nearly every day, prayed 5 times a day(morning, before lunch, end of school day, before dinner, before bed),and went to church twice a week. I still think believing in an organized religion is the most retarded thing a person could do, making it clear the have no historical basis for their place in the world and their beliefs about it. The recent christlarpers is nothing more than pathetic faggots doing anything to differentiate themselves from the mainstream
The fruits of atheism have been revealed to be moral degeneracy
People are realizing the traditional values of Christianity are what might save the west from cultural collapse
>not understanding that Christianity with its multitude of European saints and heroes embodies like no other religion the Faustian spirit of the West
lmao
>Who were the persians?
>Who were all the post alexander the great splinter kingdoms?
I get it, you're one of those people who think Greeks are not white.
>has been happening since before the hippie movement
>still entirely insignificant
It's going to be christian/pagan revival
>if republicans X
>but don't Y
>checkmate republicans
Lmao you think the Persians are 'white' and a tiny Greek ruling monarchy suddenly makes the tens of millions of people living in these regions Greek? You can't be serious
Ooh, I get it. You're a moron.
The core commands of love God and love thy neighbour remain the same in all Christian denominations, its just how you actually do that which is contested.
Talk to people outside the internet.
I was reading my Bible at the coffee shop and some random guy came up to me to discuss it. It was the only time a stranger has approached me for anything other than begging for a cigarette in months. Seems like a sure thing to me.
That's technically theism, but as far as values and identity go, it'd be much closer to the atheists/agnostics than any of the old death cults. There's no morals we can derive specifically from God, because the gods are literally losers just like us. The end result is basically the same as normal humanism.
I'm just waiting for the perfect simulist book to be written. I really feel like Veeky Forums in particular would like it, and it might help them to become better people, even if just a little.
If you are referring to Veeky Forums, these people are largely using religion ironically or as a cultural weapon. Basically it was not edgy enough to insult people based on race and gender, so they seized on religion as an extra badge of honor that would upset normies and allow them to reclaim the Crusades as a cultural banner.
But these people are 1. not exercising any spiritual discipline and 2. not engaging with the core tenets of their supposed faith. They are not delving into God's word, not engaging in the local church, and not actively repenting. They are more interested in using faith as an outward marker of cultural conformity ("This is Christian country, get out!") rather than pursing the inward reformation that Christ calls for. They do not want to repent, they want to see others burn.
Veeky Forums is largely occupied with practical atheists, but they want the additional elitism that declaring enemies "heretics!" or "papists!" can give you.
It's almost like believing in nothing is unsustainable.
>Be a complete skeptic for the majority of my life
>Finally sit down and start reading the bible for the first time in my life sometime last month
>Get the Skeptics Annotated Bible because I want all the stupid insane shit spelled out for me.
>Get halfway through Genesis and quit because its just fucking boring shit
>>>Co Worker who is born again Christfag who is actually a pretty cool guy that I genuinely like suggests I start with Matthew and John to "put into perspective what the OT was all about".
>>Read Matthew, Jesus is talking about how (metaphorically of course) how evil/corrupt people only ever bear rotten fruit and should be cut down and cast into the fire
>"Blasphemy will not be forgiven"
>Welp, I'm fucked. No need to read further
>Talk to coworker about these things
>Without batting an eye "W-w-well, you have to put it into context h-heh heh"...
>"He's really just talking to the Pharisees... l-l-lol"
Its all so very tiresome. Why is "The Prince Of Peace" TM such an asshole?
Opus Dei been doing a successful psyop on internet edgelords
pantheism is evolved agnosticism because it helps you feel spiritually connected to the universe. Yeah, I just wrote that. Wanna fight about it?
>religious belief X is an evolution of not having religious beliefs
Really makes you ponder
Modern pantheism isn't religious. Read a book pleb.
faggot Veeky Forums pseud, you werent around 2 fucking days ago for the koran thread?
Pantheism
1. a doctrine which identifies God with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of God.
2. the worship or tolerance of many gods.
I go by definitions. If you use words in an esoteric fashion, then explain them more.
>reading Q fan fiction
Just read Paul's letters
To answer OP, TJ Kirk stuck a banana up his butt. Nowadays people are just LARPing about pretending to go on jihads and crusades.
>not being gnostic
is like you like to suffer
Q fan fiction?
>Matthew, Mark, Luke
John is shit but in a different way
Very well.
"Scientific Pantheism is above all a profoundly emotional response to Nature and the wider Universe. It accepts that these are the only reality that we can truly know, the only reality that truly matters, the only reality we have to relate to. They are the place we arose, the place we belong, the context of our daily lives. We are at home here. Science and our senses tell us about what the world is really like, Scientific Pantheism expresses how we feel about that reality."
>2017
>not being Neoplatonist Hermeticist Gnostic
I feel as though Nietzsche is doomed to eternally be interpreted however people feel like for all of eternity. Poor guy. I've personally never gotten Nihilism from his works since he attacks Nihilism, but I guys it's one of those pick and choose things like the Nazis did.
Self-proclaimed pantheists are without a shadow of a doubt, the biggest brainlets I have ever encountered in my life. Far, far below new atheists, evangelical Christians, Wiccans, or any of the other usual suspects.
I'm sure there are smart pantheists out there, and I'm sure there's interesting, comprehensive works and arguments for pantheism. But for any pantheist I've ever met you could sum up the entirety of their theological worldview as follows "God, is like, everything, man. I'm not really sure what god is supposed to be, or the implications of him being everything but I can claim props for being spiritual or something right?". I'm probably unfairly generalizing but it's obvious from the ones I've met they haven't thought about god for more than like 10 seconds and thought the idea of pantheism sounded cool.
>scientific pantheism
I could have looked that up if you had used that term in the first place.
But yeah, if that is an accurate description. Then it doesn't sound inherently religious.
>God, is like, everything, man.
I mean, that pretty much sums it up. What more do you want them to say?
>Just read Paul's letters
Why?
I thought it was a given that's the definition I was using. I haven't met one person that follows traditional pantheism or really heard the latter talked about outside of proper continental philosophy.
Catholics are a form of Christians, Japanese are people living in a country.